2003

I’m not exactly sure how to feel about this book. I fully admit that I bought it because I knew there was a movie coming out. It was on my extensive list of books to eventually read but seeing the movie advertisement just reminded me to get my ass in gear.

The Lovely Bones is about Susie Salmon who is raped and murdered by her neighbor at the age of fourteen. The story chronicles the experiences of her family after her death as Susie watches from heaven.

Since I’m so divided I’m going to separate this review into two lists: things I liked about the book and things that I didn’t like about the book. Let’s start with the things that I liked.

-This book is an exciting take on the grief that follows the death of a loved one and what happens after the soul leaves the body. Seeing things from Susie’s perspective was psychedelic. It didn’t let the reader forget that once someone dies they are still with you in one way or another. And I liked this idea.

-The story was emotionally gripping, which is what I expected from such a novel. I closed the book with mixed feelings of loss and hope.

-The first few chapters were excellent. The book starts off with a slap in the face. Susie is already dead and we get to read about how her assailant—Mr. Harvey—led her to untimely death. Subsequently, she describes her worried parents from her heaven, their fear that she might be dead, their hope that she might still be alive, and the police investigation that points heart-wrenchingly to the former. It’s really a punch in the stomach, and I mean this in the most positive way possible.

Now for the things that I found fault with. There are spoilers in this section. I’ll try to be as vague as possible in the introduction of each bullet but after that I’m going to get into specifics. So if you don’t want to be spoiled I would suggest that you either skim this section or skip it all together.

-First off, the character development. Or lack thereof. I never really got a feel for any of the people I was reading about besides surface stuff. Which is disappointing since a lot of the characters had so much potential. Not even Susie herself was completely fleshed out. There are three that left me especially let down.

a) Susie’s mother. After Susie’s death her method of coping is to escape. She doesn’t want to be a mother anymore so she takes off for—what was it? eight years?—and we hardly get anything but a few brief flashes of insight into her mind while she’s on the road. Her adventures aren’t fleshed out, and we don’t really know how she feels about leaving her family. It’s mentioned near the end that she doesn’t feel like she can call herself a mother to them anymore but her feelings during her time of abandonment aren’t ever explored.
b) Ruth. Why in the world is introduced as a lesbian? This aspect of her character is never explored throughout the novel. It’s mentioned twice, maybe three times, in the beginning and toward the middle and end I guess that she has suddenly converted to heterosexuality on a whim since she’s kissing Ray. In fact, it seems that she was never really a lesbian at all since at one point she mentions having a school girl crush on Hal Heckler. Besides her ambiguous sexuality, it seemed to me that she was given interesting aspects that were never fleshed out and that she was ultimately placed into the novel as a device for Susie in the end.
c) George Harvey. This is the big one. I’ve read about a lot of serial killers, real and fictional. And I love reading about serial killers since I like to delve into their psyche and see what makes them tick. What triggers their sort of twisted and psychotic behavior? George Harvey was not a believably interesting serial killer. He’s a bland guy that just happens to kill people. Others in the neighborhood mentioned that he is strange and stand-off-ish and he does have a certain way with words when it comes to being questioned by the cops (Jeffrey Dahmer, anyone?) but other than this, he didn’t strike me as a particularly terrifying/fascinating/convincing character.

And then there are others such as Ray and his mother, Lindsey, and Buckley, but I’m not going to get into them right now.

-Heaven. I mentioned that I liked Sebold’s concept earlier and I do. Honestly, I do. The problem is that I would have liked to see more of it. And not just that, the people in it. Two other people who frequent Susie’s heaven are mentioned—Holly and Franny—but they don’t add much to the book. Why not? They could have been great commentators on life or death or what it means to die or what it means to live or grieve of let go or love someone. Why aren’t their lives ever put into the spotlight?

And in this vein, I wanted to know more about the girls that Harvey killed. Susie meets them in heaven at one point but their meeting is hardly more than mentioned. I wanted their stories, and the stories of their families’ grief, and how they felt about life after death. Again, they could have provided amazing speculation on some of the themes in the book but their potential is never realized.

-The ending. This is probably my biggest problem. Besides my other complaints, it was going pretty well until I got to the last thirty or so pages. It was looking at about a four-star status. But as soon as Susie entered Ruth’s body my suspension of disbelief—and believe me, I hadn’t been suspending too much belief at this point—snapped. It just came out of nowhere.

Okay, so let’s pretend that it’s completely possible for a dead person to harness the body of a living person so that they can find closure on Earth. Strange things happen everyday, right? And I don’t know the ways of the universe so how am I supposed to know that something like this could never happen? I read on.

So Susie possesses Ruth’s body to complete her life ambition on Earth. Which is, for some reason, to have sex with Ray. I felt completely and utterly cheated reading this. How the hell is that any kind of resolution? It wasn’t just the apparent message that sex solves all problems that threw me out of the story. It was the fact that 1) she was raped before she was murdered and that didn’t seem to have any sort of repercussions with her and 2) she spent the entire book watching her family—especially her father—come to grips with her death and it doesn’t even occur to her to lead her family to her body and give them closure. No, the one most important thing about her return to Earth was to have sex with this guy.

And what’s more, the boy—Ray—not only believes that she is Susie but he seems to have no problem having sex with this dead girl possessing his friend’s body. With no thought or regard for the friend, I might add.

Final verdict: three stars. It could have been great but the characters and the ending left much to be desired. ( )

The protagonist narrates the story of her life, beginning with her murder.
Substance: Sebold evokes a clear and familiar setting (although I was born a decade earlier than the protagonist in a different state). She depicts a strong understanding of the lives of adolescents and of people undergoing traumatic loss.
Style: Sebold is descriptive but straight-forward, artful without being arty. ( )

I've had The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now. I knew I was going to enjoy the book but I just never got around to reading it. With the movie coming out this winter, I knew I wanted to get the book read first, and I'm very glad I did. I'm going to do my best not to spoil anything, but some of it can't be helped.

This is the second book I've read this year where the main character was dead. I don't think this will be a huge trend as the book has to be pretty well written for it to make sense. Fortunately, this book was. We are introduced to Susie Salmon as a living fourteen year old. Within a few pages, she is looking at earth from her Heaven and that's when we really get to know her and her family.

The book is not about solving the mystery of her death, we know who did it from the start. The story is about Susie's family and how they cope with her death. Without a body, her parents must find closure without proof. The author did an amazing job of making each character real. We get to follow the lives of both of her parents, her sister, her brother, her boyfriend, and a girl who was not yet a friend but became one even after Susie's death.

The Lovely Bones is a wonderful book and with Peter Jackson directing the movie, I think it will be great as well. I recommend that you all read this before seeing the movie. ( )

Interesting first half because of the shock value of the crime. Awful second half--a treacly, unimaginative description of what the author imagines the afterlife to be. Sebold tries to soften the blow of the terrible thing that happened by imagining the victim looking down on her family from heaven. ( )

In The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon narrates her story from heaven. In 1973, at age fourteen, she was murdered by a neighbor. Susie talks about how it happened and how her family copes with her death. Her spirit stays around her family, friends and even her murderer. She watches as her loved ones deal with her death. She also follows her murderer as he disposes of her body and continues living his life.

I got my copy of The Lovely Bones last year for 25 cents at a library sale that I stumbled upon. Isn't that the way it always is? You find an amazing book when you least expect it. This was an emotional, heartwrenching read. I emersed myself into this book, I could not put it down. I even got teary eyed during certain parts, which is not something I tend to do while reading a book.

The storyline was moving and the characters were really well written. I liked the relationship between Susie and her older sister Lindsey, even after death the two sisters are entwined. I also liked Susie's view of her heaven and the way she describes it. She always lingers around her loved ones, never wanting to let them go. I found Susie and her fathers relationship to be very moving. The way her father feels guilt over her death and how he really never gets over it. Some of the passages describing thier relationship were among the most emotional in the book. Especially years after her death when he finally comes to terms with her never coming back home. ( )

Susie was murdered when she was fourteen years old. She's getting used to life in heaven while watching what's going on in the lives of the living.

I cannot believe how wonderful this is! If you only read one book or listen to one audiobook this year, it should be this one. ( )

There is an atmosphere to this book I have come across once before, it was a book called The Pilot's Wife. The stories are different but they both leave you feeling horror, pain, loss, and finally hope, you hope the truth is discovered, you hope that there is a way to move beyond the tragedy, you hope that there is a chance of happiness for these people after so much pain. This book will haunt you. ( )

After years of avoiding because of the distasteful premise, I listened to the Recorded Books version and was blown away by the strength of the dead narrator's voice and the vision of an amorphous Heaven.

Negatives: The last fifth of the book dragged and the "return" of the dead girl was too woo-woo.

The Recorded Books interview with Alice Sebold is worth a listen. She mentions that she has always been a bit morbid, "but in a FUN way..." ( )

So far I am loving this book! The narrative in beautiful and imaginative.

I highly recommend this book to anyone willing to read it! Great characters, plot and pace. ( )

I loved the idea of heaven that this book created. The characters were well thought out and I loved that the ending was not really a happily ever after, although it annoyed me somewhat (just because you expect that happily ever after sometimes).
Itching for the movie to come out now. ( )

Though I do not believe in an afterlife, I found this to be a compelling story, and beautifully written.

Very good. ( )

I read this book long after it was published, initially thinking that it was going to be a gruesome murder story. Was I ever surprised. I've read it several time since buying it and shared it with my shrink and grief counselor to let him know which one in the family I most identified with. This could have easily been a maudlin, depressing downer, but Sebold's injecting the spiritual lifted this truly original story to joyful heights.

If you've never experienced the death of someone you loved more than yourself, you might not burrow as deeply into this book as others. But it will stick, and you'll pick it up again sometime. ( )

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is one of the better books I have read. The entire story is told from the point of view of Sophie Salmon (like the fish), a young girl who is horribly murdered, and is focused on her observations from heaven of her friends and family as they strive to make sense of this tragedy and to simply live their lives.

The uniqueness of the narrator makes for an interesting read. But this is not a crime story as I was expecting. I have read more books in which the murderer is caught and, well, either killed or punished in some way and while this story did deal with the murderer himself, his capture wasn’t the focus of the novel. To me, in some ways, this was extremely refreshing, yet I am glad that it is addressed in the novel at some point.

As I have a child of my own, my dear Natasha Bear, I can’t imagine what ANY parent must feel upon the realization that someone has taken their child away from them. The only thing I can do is to wrap my daughter up in my arms and, as she squirms to get away from me, to simply be grateful for the time we have together and to pray that nothing like this ever happens to her.

I was enthralled by the book, but it didn’t keep me up all night or invade my thoughts as to what was going to happen next. I am yet unsure as to whether to go to the movie (or to watch it when it comes out on DVD) because I am sure that Hollywood will mangle it.

Definitely a great novel. ( )

http://titlewave.com/search?SID=1f0f9...

Publisher Weekly starred.

Conway, C. (2002). The lovely bones (Book Review). Library Journal (1976), 127(9), 127-8. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from Article Citation database.

Huntley, k. (2002). The lovely bones (Book Review). Booklist, 98(17), 1510. Retrieved October 28, 2009, from Article Citation database.

Susie Salmon was murdered at age 14 in the early 1970s. Susie herself narrates this story as she looks down from heaven, starting with her death and following her family over the next decade. My feelings about this book are fairly tepid. It's well-written but a little heavy on the grief and family drama. While this is understandable given the circumstances, I felt like I was reading a cross between "Cold Case Files" and "The Wonder Years," with a dash of "Seventh Heaven" thrown in. I also felt like the author couldn't decide between supernatural fantasy and gritty realism, never quite reaching a happy medium either. A decent read, but don't go into it expecting a murder mystery. It's a touching family drama through and through. ( )

Definitely an above-average work, although the attempts at novelty did get a little excessive. Heaven is extraordinary enough without inventing further wackiness on Earth. ( )

A representation of a heaven close to what I like to believe really exists- everything you love in one place. A very sad subject but overall a very interesting read. ( )

bereavement

Horrible subject - why write a fantasy book about it? Didn't see the point although I did manage to read it to the end.

Reviewed by Cana Rensberger for TeensReadToo.com

THE LOVELY BONES will haunt you. This book tells the story of the most horrific thing a family could ever endure, the murder of a loved one, a child.

The child is 14-year-old Susie Salmon. We see the murder through her eyes, after she is killed. Susie narrates her story from heaven, a place like I'd not before imagined. Her heaven begins as her school playground. Slowly it grows to become more. Susie merely longs for something she misses from earth, and it appears, except, of course, the living. Although she can watch her loved ones, know what they are doing, thinking, and feeling, she cannot be with them, or they with her.

The book begins with the emotional, frightening, and vividly shown homicide. Through Susie's eyes, we understand how he tricked her. We feel her terror as we realize, with her, what's about to happen. Then the scene moves to another, equally heartbreaking moment, three days later when a neighbor's dog finds a body part.

You would think, at this point, that you wouldn't be able to read further, that you'd close the book and never reopen it. But you won't be able to. Like Susie, we want to know her family will be okay. We want to know the killer won't get away with it. The author, Alice Sebold, artfully forces you to read on.

Susie watches her friends whisper about her at school. She watches as her younger sister, Lindsey, hardens to stone. Her four-year-old brother, Buckley, is passed from neighbor to neighbor, having sleepovers, told his sister has just gone away for a bit. She listens to the detective, Len, tell her parents the inevitable, that they are now investigating her disappearance as a murder. Her family slowly begins to crumble and Susie can do nothing to help.

This sounds like a suffocating, depressing book, but as you read you'll feel encouraged as Susie's family begins to move on, never to forget, but to begin to live life without her. Buckley struggles to understand the meaning of forever. Susie's dad becomes obsessed with proving he's not crazy, that he's certain who killed his daughter. Susie's mom handles the stress by hiding from it. And Lindsey, known as the girl whose sister was murdered, strives to find herself again. She searches for love. And she takes a huge risk to help her dad flush out the killer.

The ending is incredibly sweet. Amazing as it may seem, you will feel Susie's joy as she lets go of those she's left behind. For me, the ending wasn't perfect, it left me wanting, but I imagine that was deliberate. Life itself is not perfect. But life has hope. And that's the feeling that will stay with you as you turn the last page. It's a memorable read, not for the faint of heart. Expect to feel. To fear, to cry, and, yes, to laugh. THE LOVELY BONES will touch the very core of your being. Alice Sebold has written beautifully of the ugliest scenario possible. Wow. ( )

Amazing imagery. Beautifully written. ( )

Merideth says: The premise of this book is surprising -- Susie Salmon, after being murdered, watches her family grow apart and change from Heaven. It is beautifully written, although I got frustrated with the middle section of the book, where Sebold tries to fuse some thriller elements onto her story by having Susie's sister investigate her killer. However, overall, this is a beautifully told story and an interesting picture of a family in crisis. ( )